Innovate UK has awarded funding for a project aiming to research how post-market intelligence can be better captured and utilised to safely accelerate medical device innovation and adoption, run by partners including Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, King’s College London, and the Global Medical Device Nomenclature Agency (GMDN).
Project lead Dr Emmanuel Akinluyi from Guy’s and St Thomas’ explains that the traditionally the majority of medical device testing happens before they are used on patients; manufacturers are required to monitor devices in clinical use but this is often limited to voluntary reporting and feedback.
With recent advancements in technology such as connected devices and innovative sensors, Dr Akinluyi highlights the “new opportunities” that can be found by connecting “new and enhanced sources of data about device safety and performance”.
The network of organisations are to collaborate to explore such opportunities, with the Innovate UK funding to support a six-month discovery phrase for the project.
Health tech funding
Last week HTN reported that the Norfolk and Waveney Acute Hospitals Collaborative has secured £88 million in funding for a shared EPR programme across Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals, James Paget University Hospitals, and The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust, with the full business case now approved.
We shared Healthtech-1’s announcement that £2.7 million has been raised in seed funding to help the company expand its automation solutions for primary care with the aim of reducing the admin burden.
Other recent news from Innovate UK sees collaboration with West Yorkshire Combined Authority to offer a share of up to £500,000 for innovation projects, with the funding to support small and micro businesses grow their health tech innovation activities in the area.
Spotlight on medical devices
Last month HTN highlighted guidance from the MHRA relating to transparency principles for machine learning medical devices, to help ensure that information is clearly communicated to relevant audiences.
Also from the MHRA, we covered the launch of its regulatory sandbox for AI as a Medical Device, called AI Airlock. The sandbox is hoped to help the agency to “identify and address the challenges for regulating standalone AI medical devices”, enabling the testing of regulatory issues for devices when in use for clinical purposes in an NHS setting.
Regarding security of medical devices, HTN interviewed cyber security expert Chad Holmes to discuss how healthcare environments can protect devices and networks against attacks.
